Deborah Grey

[Supply, April 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is funny, but I just got the minister's last point. He did use the word slander pretty clearly. They toss it around fairly freely.

During question period the Prime Minister got up and gave a good rant. He said that we should get back to the real problems of the country. Do members know the real problems of the country? One problem is the lack of integrity in the very Prime Minister's office. That is exactly what we are paying attention to today.

The Prime Minister can huff and puff and say that the golf course had no financial relations with the inn, but there are in fact a number of contradictions. The bill of sale, I think, is the most important one. I find it quite hard to believe that a couple of lawyers actually signed that bill of sale.

I am just a humble English teacher reading this handwriting, but it is hard to imagine that a couple of lawyers tossed this together. With regard to the Prime Minister's name, which appears here, although of course I cannot read it, he has signed his whole name and at the bottom he has signed his initials. The J and the C are completely different from the J and the C at the top of the document.

I could ask my questions from question period again because they did not get answered. Who was at the signing of this document and in what province was it actually signed? In other words, where were the signatories? The Prime Minister did say Ottawa. We will certainly be checking that out. Dear knows where Jonas was on that day. We will track him too.

On the bill of sale there is no letterhead, witness, authorization, notarization or corporate seal. There is absolutely nothing about any sort of deposit.

Mr. Speaker, if you sold any golf course shares you might happen to have, I doubt if you would put the following on the bill of sale: payment schedule B as follows, principal payments in four equal annual instalments with interest at the institutional first mortgage rates. That was in 1993, as the Prime Minister continues to swear up and down.

You know, Mr. Speaker, because I am sure you have read these files, that there was no payment in November 1994, no payment in November 1995 and it went on and on. Absolutely nothing was paid for. In fact we know Jonas Prince wanted to make sure he got out of the deal and someone else bought it.

This bill of sale looks most suspicious when we look at the fact that it is even handwritten. I would guess that one of those paper napkins is kind of hard to get through the typewriter or computer printer. I know that certainly somebody somewhere, if this was actually official in November 1993, would have been able to put it together better.

We see this whole thing ramping up, as the press has mentioned. I will end my remarks by talking about Warren Kinsella, who was the operative for the Prime Minister during the campaign. He was writing a document and a message went around about it just last weekend. When the report from Warren Kinsella came out there was a directive that said the article “Must appear in all CanWest papers.” If there was ever anyone who was just getting into the fray and thinking that he was going to defend the Prime Minister, it only thickens the plot and puts the Prime Minister deeper into the glue. There is only one way out of this and that is an independent inquiry so the Prime Minister can prove once and for all, if he is clean, that he is clean.

[Canadian International Development Agency, April 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the Prime Minister will attack anyone else when he knows his back is up against the wall.

The question was very simple and I would like to repeat it. Who was there at the signing and in what province did they sign it?

[Canadian International Development Agency, April 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the bill of sale that I asked for recently should have been enough. It could have been enough. It would have been enough except that it was handwritten. It was unwitnessed. It was unnotarized. There was no deposit mentioned and there was no corporate seal.

It was also later repudiated by the other signatory. It is unbelievable that the Prime Minister would think that this is terribly official. Who was there at the signing of that registry and in what province was it signed?

[Supply, April 3rd, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I guess we could say nice try. Being a member of the government, surely he could bring that in as a bill himself one day. He does not need a supply day for it.

I was mentioning before I was interrupted, certainly pleasantly and not rudely, that the Prime Minister said he sold his shares on November 1—

[Supply, April 3rd, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I would like to say that I am pleased to rise on debate today, but it is not a very pretty topic, is it?

It is something I think Canadians are concerned about. We hear people on the street asking why we should be consumed with this. They ask why this is important enough to take up the time of the House. Some people even say that we need to get on to the nation's business.

Of course the answer to those questions is the issue of the integrity of the Prime Minister's Office. If that ain't the nation's business, I do not know what is.

The fact is that around $160 billion comes funnelling into this place and then gets distributed and dispersed across the country over any fiscal year. It is an unbelievable pile of cash. I think Canadians on the street are saying that if there is any cloud of doubt about the Shawinigate deal, then how big is the cloud of doubt about the guy at the top who dishes out the money and disperses it through the finance minister and cabinet?

Those are the kinds of things that make this issue one of utter importance to every Canadian. Surely if this is the place and the seat of government, the fellow who sits in the top seat must not only be seen to be clean. At the very appearance of any Shawinigate scandal, it seems to me, he should be the first one saying he needs to make sure that this is right out in the open and before all Canadian people.

We have seen a number of contradictions in the facts. The Prime Minister directly contradicted himself. He said there were no links between the golf course and the hotel. I guess it is a cute pun and I suppose he is good at humour.

On November 2 the owner of the Auberge Grand-Mère, Yvon Duhaime, said under oath, as said the member who was just speaking about it a few minutes ago, that agreements, accounts and contracts were made between the auberge and the golf course's clients. We can understand that this represents a major part of the auberge's receipts.

I just think this is unbelievable, because the Prime Minister said there was no connection whatsoever. I am sure you have seen, Madam Speaker, if you have not driven there yourself, that the signs are one and the same. The sign says to go this way for the Auberge Grand-Mère and that way for the golf course. I was on the show counterSpin , when Peter Blaikie said he was not a great golfer but he could hit a golf ball from the golf course right into the bar at the Auberge Grand-Mère. They were linked together.

For the Prime Minister to brush it off and say that there was absolutely no connection whatsoever simply is not true. I think parliament needs to get to the bottom of that.

I would be very pleased as a member of the official opposition to suggest we get this out of the hands of politicians. We should get it right out of parliament. This should be taken to an independent judicial inquiry where someone will take a little heftier look at this than the ethics counsellor, the guy who gets paid by the Prime Minister, remember.

In the red book, which was campaigned on in 1993, as I recall, there was to be an ethics commissioner reporting to parliament, not just to the Prime Minister. Yet here we are this many years later. In fact the ethics counsellor has contradicted himself any number of times. I may get to some his contradictory statements in a moment. However he then had coffee with the Prime Minister and said everything was okay. There is no credibility in that whatsoever.

Let us make sure that we get an ethics counsellor who becomes an ethics commissioner, who has real teeth and will be able to say that something smells and we had better do something about it. As we know it has taken up an unbelievable amount of time in the House. As well it taints every decision the government makes because people want to make sure that there is integrity in government. When people come here, I am sure not just for my speech but for question period, they want to be able to trust the people in the House.

The member from Toronto asked a couple of minutes ago before my speech how this place works if we do not have trust. That is a really excellent question. The real question is: How will this place ever work if we do not earn trust? Trust needs to be earned. It is not having someone show up and say “Trust me”. We have had that happen before any number of times in government.

We need the Canadian public to see that elected officials earn the trust of the Canadian public. Frankly the Prime Minister has done himself a lot of damage because there really is no trust. He has not earned it. This affair has gone on for so long that it seems to me it is getting a little out of control.

I see more contradictions. The Prime Minister said he sold his one-quarter share. In fact we are not sure whether it is 25% or 22%, but it is roughly a one-quarter share in the Grand-Mère golf course. The Prime Minister swears up and down, and the troops parrot the line, that he sold those shares on November 1, 1993, to wealthy Toronto real estate developer Jonas Prince for $300,000 plus interest.

[Supply, April 3rd, 2001]

Was it contrary to what the Prime Minister said?

[Points Of Order, March 29th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have something to which the Chair and the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism should be made aware given the events of last week.

I would like to table the secretary of state's press release dated March 8, 2000. It may help her to answer a question I asked her in question period. Her response to the question I had asked was “I do not know what the member is alluding to”. Her response to my second question was “I will not make a comment on something that I know nothing about”.

We would find that hard to believe.

[Business Of The House, March 29th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the House leader what is on the agenda for next week and the coming weeks. He has talked about water, but I am sure there are other important things he could share with us today.

[Multiculturalism, March 29th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, these cross burnings and desecrations occurred at a place of worship in Montreal in March 2000 on International Women's Day. The junior minister used taxpayer money for these women to take action “collectively”. In her press kit she said “every action counts”. Action happened that day in Montreal, that is for sure.

Why does she not accept those real cross burnings and denounce the ones that are imaginary?

[Multiculturalism, March 29th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the junior minister of multiculturalism has scoured the country looking for cross burning incidents to justify her slander of British Columbia's cities. There was one, but it was not done by the KKK or by racists. No, it was members of a radical feminist organization, supported by the minister, who burned crosses on the steps of a Roman Catholic cathedral last March.

Why did the junior minister not speak up about that real hate crime, not the invented one that she has been speaking about recently?